Synopsis

Seiji Hasumi, 32, teaches English at a private high school in a suburb of Tokyo. A graduate of Harvard University, he worked for a time at a major U.S. investment bank. But despite the stellar résumé, he has two diametrically opposed sides to his character. On the one hand, he plays the role of dedicated teacher and is popular with his students for his learner-friendly teaching methods; on the other, he has secretly bugged the school building in order to gather information on the students and has been fixing things so that his favorite students?with emphasis on the pretty girls?will be in his 11th-grade homeroom. Shortly after the start of the school year in April, he rescues Yasuhara from sexual harassment by the gym teacher, who holds a shoplifting incident over her head, and makes her his own lover. He discovers that art teacher Kume, the pampered son of a wealthy family, is having an affair with a male student, and blackmails him for the use of his luxury apartment and Porche on his assignations with Yasuhara. Then, on the last day of classes before the start of summer vacation in July, he kills a male student who seems to be catching on to his schemes; thinking Yasuhara knows, he decides to make it look like a suicide and kill her, too. Near the end of summer vacation, with the school's annual Cultural Day slated for September 1 fast approaching, the entire class gathers at school for an all-night session to prepare the spook house they've planned. Hasumi takes the opportunity to push Yasuhara off the roof, but his plan goes awry when he's spotted by a student on his way back down. He kills the girl; then, in order to cover his tracks and implicate a colleague, he begins blasting away with a shotgun at all 40 students present for the all-nighter. A serial-killer story that ratchets the mayhem up several notches beyond Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho.

About the Author

Yusuke Kishi (1959–) became an avid reader after encountering Ruth Stiles Gannett's My Father's Dragon series as a small child, and steeped himself in science fiction and mysteries during his grade-school years. Upon graduating from Kyoto University he set his sights on becoming a writer, but went to work for a major life insurance company and wrote only on the side for several years. His first recognition was an Honorable Mention for a short story he entered in the Hayakawa SF Contest in 1986. Later, he quit his job to concentrate on writing, and in 1996 his Isola received an Honorable Mention in the Japan Horror Story Awards, which led to its being published as Jusanbanme no perusona, Isola (Isola, the Thirteenth Persona). The following year his novel Kuroi ie (The Black House) won the Japan Horror Story Grand Prize and became a million-seller. He received the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Garasu no hamma (The Glass Hammer) in 2005, and the Japan SF Grand Prize for Shinsekai yori (From the New World) in 2008. His star continues to rise, as his bestseller Aku no kyoten (Lesson of the Evil) was voted Number One in the 2011 Konomys rankings and brought him his first nomination for the Naoki Prize. Books by this author